To Well And Back (The Deep Dark Well)

by Doug Dandridge

  [In approximately five more minutes] said that robot, rearing to its full Maurid imitating height, wielding a nano-binder over the hull of the first machine.

  Watcher nodded his head and turned away, walking back to the outside and scanning the jungle with his visually enhanced visor. He took a close look at the trees, noting the spaces between them, and the way the upper canopy arched over that open area below. Shouldn’t be a problem, he thought, then amended that to it surely will be some kind of problem I can’t yet foresee. He ticked off the minutes in his head, then turned to go back to the vehicles, which now hovered a few centimeters over the surface of the floor. Maurid shaped robots were coming out of the wormhole with bundles and boxes that they were loading into the vehicles. The boxes stowed away, they next started strapping things to the outside, until the hover tanks resembled gypsy caravans from many millennia past. There were other people where he was going, and not all were enemies. And properly armed allies were always a good thing.

  [All is ready, Watcher] came the transmission from the prime robot.

  [Then let us leave] said the one organic unit of the group. He climbed into the control compartment of the third vehicle, while the sixty Maurid shaped combat robots distributed themselves around the small convoy. With a command the vehicles left the pyramid, the outer door closing behind them. Down the slope of the pyramid they went, then under the canopy of the trees.

  Watcher had considered going the fast way, with aircraft that could get him to the target area in hours instead of days. But with the enemy controlling the orbitals he had decided against that route, which may have ended up with his craft splashing down in the jungle in molten pieces. Better late than never, he thought, looking out the windows at the passing jungle. She’s resourceful. Now just let her keep a low profile, and not do anything too stupid. He shook his head at that thought, knowing that she attracted trouble like the carnivorous flowers of this jungle attracted prey.

  * * *

  “We are in standard orbit, Admiral,” said Captain Lashan over the com.

  “Very good,” replied Admiral Miklas Gerasi, getting up from his chair and walking from his day cabin office.

  The doors to the bridge opened before him, and he strode in as everyone jumped to attention, until he waved them back to their seats.

  The orange tinted planet rotated below, and side screens showed the rest of the force clustered around the flagship. Including the force of Commodore Valaris Midas.

  “Get Midas’ ship on the com,” ordered the Admiral, walking to his seat and plopping down. “I would like to talk to the Commodore.” It took a few moments to connect, and then the troubled face of the Commodore appeared on Gerasi’s repeater screen.

  “What can I do for you, Admiral?” asked the officer in a tired voice.

  “First off, I want to tell you what a great job you did out there,” said Gerasi with a smile. “You really caught the bastards off guard.”

  “And that little bastard almost did me in,” said the Commodore, the frown deepening on his face.

  “That was also a brilliant piece of work,” said the beaming Admiral. “You should be proud of yourself.”

  “I lost half my command,” said the Commodore, and Gerasi raised a hand to stop him from continuing.

  “I wasn’t your command when the damned ship started its attack,” said Gerasi, pointing a finger at the screen. “And don’t let me hear you taking the blame for it. You got your shit together after the attacker wiped out the flag, and gave him all she could handle. So you stand proud, Commodore.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the Commodore, his posture straightening and his face perking up.

  “How are things going on the surface, Valaris?” asked the Admiral, steepling his fingers and looking over them.

  “We have them trapped,” said the Commodore, a look of triumph on his face. “I don’t think they’re going to get out of this with intact skins.”

  “I would like some prisoners,” said the Admiral, looking over at another screen that showed the still spreading debris of the fort that had once occupied an orbit around the world.

  “We’ll get you some,” said the Commodore, looking fiercely into the screen.

  “So you don’t need any of my Marines?” asked the Admiral, looking over at his Marine Liaison Officer, who looked back with puppy dog tenseness. “I have over a thousand of them just raring to go.”

  “I’ll let you know, Admiral,” said the Commodore with a nod. “But right now it looks like we’ve got it under control.”

  “OK. Well, keep me informed. Gerasi out.”

  The screen went blank, and the Admiral stared at the star field that took its place for a moment. Somewhere in that field lay the enormous station that orbited the black hole. He shuddered for a moment as he remembered the beating his command had taken there, the last time he was in this region of space. We’ll get you eventually, you bastard, thought the Admiral, visualizing the big brained Abomination who had almost thwarted his success. Once we capture your agent here, and learn how to go through the back door, you will be mine.

  * * *

  “Where in the hell did they all come from?” yelled a trooper to the front.

  The hell if I know, thought Fleet Admiral Nagara Krishnamurta, keeping himself as low to the ground as he could manage, while cringing at the crack of high speed projectiles going overhead. And why didn’t our native guides smell them out before they hit?

  A tree trunk about twenty meters away exploded, dropping the rest of the tree until it was caught up in the canopy foliage and hung there. The Admiral recognized the signature strike of a heavy laser. Unfortunately, the laser swung over and hit one of the Sagara plants that sat near a small glade. The plant threw off steam, then went up in a blast of vegetable matter. The vines radiating from the plant spasmed for a moment, and then lay still.

  The same could not be said of the dozens of other Sagaras in the area. Moments after their brother was killed they went wild, flinging barbed vines every which way. For a moment the battle against their fellow man was forgotten, as both sides fired at the killer vegetables that were randomly striking at both sides. Most of the combatants had on armor, but there were still gaps that could be exploited, and several armored Marines went down to the venomous poison of the plants’ spines. Those that fell were soon surrounded by more vines, seeking to puncture flesh and inject digestive enzymes into their prey.

  Unfortunately for the humans, Maurid life was built on a similar protein architecture. Humans had some trouble digesting Maurid life, but the alien life had no trouble processing human proteins. Those punctured would turn into a soup of partially digested proteins underneath their skin, soon to be sucked up by the greedy plants. Unfortunately for the plants, they would not be around to enjoy the bounty, as human weapons from both sides blotted them from existence.

  A vine swung at the Admiral, attracted by something, he was never sure what. Krishnamurta rolled away, sure that any moment he would feel the sting through his uniform that presaged death. He brought his laser pistol to bear, almost overcompensating in the adrenaline rush. A quick squeeze of the trigger cut the vine in half, the far end flying off from the force of its strike, the near falling to the ground just short of the human and flopping around.

  The Admiral watched the fight switch back to a shooting match between the two sides, but there were still some terrifying moments as the jungle joined in. He saw a Nation Marine come out of cover to move to a new position, a couple of projectiles bouncing from his armor. Just before the Marine got to the cover he was looking for the ground hinged up and a large arthropod reared from the revealed pit, its claws grabbing the man and pulling him back into the trap it had set. In an instant it was gone, the cover back in place so quickly that the Admiral almost doubted his own eyes. The Marine of course was in battle armor, but the Admiral had seen those big claws bending the part of the suit it gripped. And the enemy Marine did not come out of the hole, a sign that he was
the loser in the little drama of predator and prey.

  “Shit, get them off me,” yelled another Spacer, this one also without battle armor. The man screamed at the top of his lungs and rolled around, a black mass of creatures covering him. They looked like roaches more than anything else the Admiral had ever seen, and they were stripping the flesh from the man as he watched.

  Krishnamurta did the most merciful thing he could think of, putting a laser shot into the man’s forehead and ending the struggle. He frantically looked around to make sure none of the insects were on him, then jumped to his feet and ran away from the front line to find some safer cover, if any really existed.

  “We have contact to the rear,” called out a voice over the command circuit, just before more hypervelocity rounds came ripping through the jungle.

  And now we are well and truly fucked, thought the Admiral as he fell to the ground, getting away from the rounds he knew were seeking his life more important than avoiding the insects that might or might not be there.

  The trap was closed, and his force was in a box he couldn’t see a way out of. And I’ll die before I allow those bastards to take me prisoner, he thought, checking his pistol and seeing that he still had half of its charge remaining. Everyone knew how the Nation treated prisoners. If you weren’t of their religion they believed you were headed for Hell. And they saw it as their job to make sure you got there quickly. But not before they got what information you had, by whatever means possible. The Admiral checked his belt to make sure he had another power pack for the pistol, then made a mental note to make sure he had enough of a charge at the end to destroy his brain. Suicide might be a sin, but he thought the Gods would forgive him for removing the services of the information he carried from the enemy.

  Chapter Ten

  In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins. Ulysses S. Grant

  The Nation of Humanity forces had reverse engineered the technology they had stolen from the Donut, advancing their own tech almost a thousand years in some areas. Pandora Latham was using the end tech of the New Terran Empire, the civilization that had more or less owned the Galaxy before its fall. It was the culmination of thirty thousand years of military technology, the tech that had won countless wars before the Galaxy settled into a Pax. And then it had been modified by the most intelligent being that had ever lived.

  She was still heavily outnumbered by the force she was about to attack. Her robots’ motion sensors and the micro-pizzos had determined from one direction there were almost four hundred armored Marines attacking a hundred and forty some odd Suryans, not all of whom were armored, while another two hundred of that enemy closed up from the rear. It was a classic ambush, and something she planned to counter with another classic maneuver.

  She checked her HUD one more time and grunted in satisfaction. All of the robots were in position, and the enemy didn’t seem to have a clue that they were there, thanks to their stealth systems. Once she started the attack they would have some idea, and she didn’t expect to come out of this unscathed. But as long as the brains of the operation, herself, came through, she was alright with that.

  I just hope they don’t bring the hammer from space, she thought, looking up at the canopy overhead. There was only one reason she could think that they hadn’t done that already. Prisoners. They wanted intelligence, and live captives could give it, while dead enemies could not. She had felt the rumbling of other strikes, and knew that the Nation ships had hit other groups of Suryans. She just hoped that they didn’t hit this one once their own plan went to Hell.

  [OK] she ordered over the command circuit. [Commence operations].

  The acknowledgements came back from the robots immediately. Those with targets opened fire with every antipersonnel weapon they could bring to bear, laser and particle beam rifles, internal rail guns, and the light amp weapons built into their sensory heads. Microgrenades flew out to sparkle in small explosions, while the heavy weapons bots fired low angle mortars into known enemy positions.

  Pandora herself ran forward with the twelve robots that formed the striking wave. She was heavily outnumbered by the enemy, but she had the firepower advantage along her point of attack, the Schwerpunkt, as the old Germans had called it. Overall power didn’t matter as much as what was at the point of decision. And she was going to use her advantage to roll up the enemy flank and send him running, or let him die in place if he so decided.

  The woman sighted in her weapon on a Nation Marine who was trying to bring a heavy laser to bear on her. Her particle beam hit weapon and man at the same moment. The heavy laser flared, metal and plastics turned molten, and the weapon broke in half. High speed protons hit the chest of the man and his armor immediately glowed red. The beam ate through armor and into flesh beneath, and the man slumped down over the remains of his weapon while the last splash of particles ripped a gouge in his helmet.

  A pellet hit her helmet as she was moving forward, bouncing off as it rang the metal. Pandi cursed under her breath, and turned toward the man who was now firing rapidly from his high velocity weapon. It was not enough to penetrate her armor, though she still cringed a bit when more rounds bounced from her chest and shoulder. A quick shot with her weapon and the Marine fell to the ground with a smoking hole in his armor. She knew that inside that shell it would be worse, with cooked meat and ash occupying most of his organic form.

  A vine lashed across her armor as she took another step forward. She ducked as it came back, seeking out whatever it was that was striking at her, and locating a strange looking plant that was sending a half dozen more vines her way. A blast of particles and the plant was mulch, and she turned her attention back to enemies that might actually be able to hurt her. She found some immediately by the flash of microgrenades that burst around her.

  They’re trying to make me go deaf, she thought as a dozen of the small explosives went off without further effect on her suit. Of course, her nanites could repair that damage within minutes, if her suit let through enough noise to actually cause nerve damage. Nothing they had would save the three men she cut down with high velocity protons that turned from kinetic energy into killing heat. She leapt over the armored bodies that poured smoke from the holes and gashes she had opened in them, and continued on in a run.

  She saw another position just ahead, a pair of soldiers lying behind a log and firing their mag rail rifles at something she couldn’t see. Her HUD brought up the view of the enemy’s targets, a pair of Suryans, one in light naval armor, the other in uniform. Not really sporting, she thought, turning her attention back to the heavily armored Marines. She rippled off a dozen mini-grenades over the two men, watching the small flashes with satisfaction. The grenades were dual purpose, antipersonnel and antiarmor. As they hit they sent a series of miniature flechettes through the armor of the Marines and into their bodies, ripping internal systems apart. Both men bled out before they could do more than look her way.

  Her HUD showed that she was getting a little ahead of her bots. Twenty were still in the fight, and she wondered what might have happened to the one missing. That would wait. And she would wait for the rest to catch up with her. Her body wanted to charge in, deal death, and get this distasteful slaughter over with. Her mind overruled, telling her the smart thing to do was wait until her flanks were guarded. That decision was still in her mind when the hypervelocity missile came at her like a streak of light.

  * * *

  Colonel Makari Quaid of the Nation of Humanity Marines looked triumphantly at the Commodore who commanded the ships his troops came from. “We have them trapped, sir,” he said in a prideful voice. “There’s no way the rats are going to escape this trap.”

  “Remember, Colonel,” said Commodore Valaris Midas over the com screen. “We need prisoners. The Admiral needs to know what the future plans of these heretics are, so we can prepare for their return.”

  “I understand, sir,” said the Colonel with
a smile. “We will…”

  “What the hell is that,” came a voice over the CinC circuit.

  “Excuse me, Commodore,” said the Colonel, a frown stealing over his face. “I’ll get back with you ASAP.”

  The screen went blank. They were involved in a tactical situation, with no time for niceties. “What’s going on?” the Colonel asked into the link, seeing the trouble spot on his HUD, where several green dots were blinking red, then going out. Never a good sign in a combat zone, and typically signifying troops dying.

  “They came out of nowhere, sir,” said a voice as a face appeared on the HUD. The name below the face said Lieutenant Burnside, who Quaid recalled was a platoon leader in D company. “They hit us hard before we even knew they were there.”

  “Who are they, Lieutenant?” said the Colonel, trying to will his own voice to stay calm. “And what are you doing about they?”

  The image of a six limbed robot came on the screen, running forward on four limbs while it fired a combination rifle/grenade launcher carried in the two forelimbs. A red beam stabbed out of the weapon, and the picture went dead, and Quaid knew that the trooper who had sent that image went dead with it.

  A particle beam, thought the Colonel, carried by a robot that is far beyond anything we can make. So they came here after all.

  “That’s all I have right now, sir” said the officer, his voice still on the edge of panic. “I sent Sergeant Kleffa with a squad to try and flank the bastards, but he and his men went off the circuit, and I can’t get them back.”

  “I’m sending another platoon to reinforce you,” said the Colonel, linking into another unit and sending them their orders. “Don’t let them through.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the young man, his eyes wide. “We’ll hold…”

  The link went dead, and the Colonel was damned sure that the officer was no longer among the living. He said a quick prayer for the officer and his men, that they might dwell with God. And then he started making his tactical shifts, hoping that he could stop the flanking attack while keeping up the pressure on the Suryans.